Hawk called up a mental map, the image as crisp as if he were looking at the real thing, right down to the scale in the corner.
First, Salt Lake City.
Then Reno.
Sacramento.
San Francisco.
Los Angeles.
Northeast to Las Vegas, southeast to Phoenix.
Spin back to end the trip in San Diego.
Total distance, 2440 miles.
Forty hours if he did it straight. But he’d want to eat in restaurants, go to church, ride buses. Given the latency he’d experienced, though, he couldn’t dawdle too much. So spend, say, four days shaking hands and sneezing his way through metropolitan areas encompassing a population of, let’s see . . .
Nine million people.
Hawk coughed, smiled, and started the Jeep.
There was a long way to go.
END OF THE BRILLIANCE TRILOGY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In 2010, on a climbing trip with my buddy Blake Crouch, I fell in love with an idea. We were camping at fourteen thousand feet, bullshitting and sipping bourbon when it happened. Like most love affairs, it started with a sense of intrigue, swiftly progressed to flirting, and before either of us knew it, we were both gaga over reckless notions. Blake’s became the wildly successful Wayward Pines trilogy. Mine culminates in the book you’re now holding.
It’s been a long, wonderful journey, spanning five years, three books, and three hundred thousand words—and those are just the ones I kept. In that time my wife and I sold a condo, bought a house, had a daughter, laughed and cooked and traveled. That journey is now at an end, and like most experiences that change you, its ending brings both joy and regret.
It’s been such a pleasure to live in this world, to hang out with Cooper and Shannon and Natalie and Ethan and Quinn—sorry, Bobby, really I am—and John Smith and Erik Epstein and Hawk, and the notion of that time being behind me is a melancholy one indeed. But while I may return to this world at some point, I think that those stories are done; everyone got their shining moments and their blackest midnights, and I am grateful to them for letting me hitch a ride.
There are a number of other people I’m grateful to as well, and while few of them have a body count, like my imaginary friends, they are all badasses.
My literary agent, Scott Miller, is a fine man and a good friend, a believer from the beginning. Jon Cassir whips Hollywood into line and looks suave doing it. Thank you both, gentlemen.
It remains an honor to work with Thomas & Mercer, publishers extraordinaire. No power in the ’verse can stop my editor and FF, Alison Dasho. Jacque Ben-Zekry bends the world to her will, and it thanks her and asks her for another. Gracie Doyle kicks ass and chews bubblegum. Additional huge thanks to Tiffany Pokorny, Alan Turkus, Mikyla Bruder, Daphne Durham, and Jeff Belle, brilliant and dedicated folks whose love for story burns like a star.
Shasti O’Leary Soudant did an amazing job re-envisioning the covers of the whole series. Jessica Fogleman caught approximately one million errors I’d made. Caitlin Alexander brought vision and style to her edit, and did it crazy-fast.
My old friend Dr. Yuval Raz was incredibly generous with his time and knowledge. Both the biological basis for brilliance and the methodology to burn down the world belong to him, a juxtaposition that tickles me.
When I was stuck, when I was insomniacal, when I was rocking back and forth sobbing and picking at my skin, my boys Blake Crouch and Sean Chercover were always there to get me through. The words are all mine, but plenty of the solutions are theirs.
As always, boundless thanks to my parents, Tony and Sally, and my brother, Matt. I love you all.
My girls are my life. Thank you to my grown-up love g.g. and our little love, the brilliant, fearless, and very silly Jocelyn Sally Sakey.
Finally, dear reader, thank you. This is what I have wanted to do since I was four years old, and I am grateful for every moment of it. And so I say again: thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © Jay Franco
Marcus Sakey’s thrillers have been nominated for more than fifteen awards. They’ve been named New York Times Editors’ Choice picks and have been selected among Esquire’s top five books of the year. His novel Good People was made into a movie starring James Franco and Kate Hudson, and Brilliance is currently in development. Sakey lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter.
For more information, visit MarcusSakey.com.